You can run synthetic bechmarks on a HDD / SSD. Programs such as HD Tune HD Tach, AS SSD Benchmark, EVEREST, etc, etc will do this. Note though that these often don't reflect real word use. Tom's Hardware has some nice charts you can look at for numbers that equate more with real life use and you can also compare drives.
For example my own two HDDs are compared in-depth below...
http://www.tomshardware.co.uk/chart...compare,1010.html?prod[3016]=on&prod[2367]=on
Which drive you should choose depends very much on what you intend to use it for. I was running the OS for a time on the VelociRaptor and it performed very well. When looking for a storage / backup drive the Samsung F3 was an obvious choice and its value / high sequential performance was an advantage.
Not sure what you mean about requiring RAID for benefits? If you stick
any pair of drives in RAID0 you will see a big performance boost. Do you need RAID? Depends again on your needs and your budget but these days an SSD would be a better choice for the same money. Raptors / VelociRaptors in RAID can match SSD sequential speeds but don't even come close to the access times.
You'll probably have to aquire Raptors second hand now as they are discontinued but the 150 GB VelociRaptors have come down in price a bit and OCUK had (or still has?) an offer of £100 which is a bargain. Also don't expect games to run significantly faster as you mentioned in your OP. Loading times will be slightly quicker and a few titles do stream world data but even so we are talking low single figure FPS increases at best.
My advice is to go SSD but if out of your budget let us know more details about what drives you already have in your current system. That way we can offer better advice on what type of additional drive would be most suitable. For OS (+apps) my personal choice would be a VelociRaptor and a fast high capacity drive for pretty much everything else, unless you have some specialised requirements.